Diegetics

Begin the bequin.

Debate the debate.

Why so quiet on this? Is everyone off occupying Wall St?

The only surprising thing about this circle jerk is Cain. Now, I understand we are neither being serious about the future or they would pick Paul, and they aren't being serious about the gamesmanship or they'd pick Romney, neither having a real future barring a miracle.

But Obama really might eat it in a terminal fashion. If Cain wins, it's just going to be loopytime. Who am I kidding? It's already loopytime.

Not really a serious candidate in the bunch. Upsetting that one of them may yet be president due to Obama's incompetence.

I only caught the tail end of the Bloomberg/Charlie Rose debates, but I did appreciate the focus on economic strategies and philosophies. Usually, candidates can indulge in social & cultural issues, and that exercise isn't very helpful at the moment, habitual as it is. But for all I know they were caterwauling about something sexual for the 50 minutes prior when I was stuck in traffic.

THe problem with Paul is that he is not really a leader. A thinker? A good citizen? A man of honor? Sure, but the leadership thing, well not too much of that. you need it in this business.

Cain, on the other hand, he has that.

What is really cracking me up is last time Romney was considered the conservative, now he's considered the liberal, and if anything he's moved right since last time.

Go figure.

Romney "won" by default. Perry failed.

Cain stopped the rush with . I thought it rather genius.........

If Cain gets nominated, it's going to be a lot harder for Europeans to call us racists with a straight face.

Herman Cain has an advantage Obama did not. Herman is a Southern black, and no matter what you think of the South, for better or for worse, the people most likely to vote racist have a long history of accommodation and working with that . Cain has just enough of a Southern black in his voice to be familiar, and no, not just as an Uncle Tom. There is a history of even the worst of the white racists having respect for a clearly capable black man and offering deference, at the very least within their frame of expertise. This strikes Yankees as strange, but it's true.

Fact of the matter is that poor whites in the South work closer to black folks than any other group in America. Jesse Jackson and the race hustlers are hated mightily, but someone with an education and a track record that isn't trying to pull off too high-minded ( uppity? Arrogant? Il Duce-level imperiousness?) a schtick can bring it off.

Cain is an interesting cat. Anybody that grows a beard like that at any point in his life is not a standard personality. Who knows.

I don't watch these debates but the highlights of the one last night have been all over the news, and it looks like a bad joke. Cain repeating "apples and oranges" over and over instead of answering simple questions about his simple tax plan, Romney and Perry talking over one another, Bachmann failing geography 101. Romney still looks the strongest, but the spectacle must have cheered the Democrats.